♪ [theme song plays] ♪
[narrator] By early 1943,
the Japanese empire was at its height.
The country had occupied Malaya and Burma,
the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies,
Indonesia today.
These territories had become vital sources
of strategic supplies such as oil and rubber.
Now the United States laid plans to roll back
the Japanese gains.
The aim was to cut the country's supply lines
by seizing the occupied territories.
Japan could then be gradually strangled to death.
But to win in the vast expanse of the Pacific,
the U.S. would need to develop new forms
of mobile warfare.
They would be based on amphibious landings
supported by aircraft flying from carriers.
The Japanese, unable to match American fire power,
resorted to increasingly desperate measures.
The country fell back on ancient notions
of 'military honour'
to create suicide units.
[explosion]
The result would be a terrible loss of life.
[explosion]
This would be a decisive phase in the war
in the Pacific
and would mark the end of Japan's dreams of empire.
But this was to come.
Back in the spring of 1943
the U.S. military chiefs faced a dilemma.
They had been presented with two options
for the defeat of Japan.
The flamboyant U.S. Army General,
Douglas MacArthur, commander of the U.S.
and Australian forces in the South-West Pacific,
favoured a primarily land based route.
His idea was to seize the Solomon Islands,
Papua New Guinea and the Philippines.
They could then be turned into a strategic barrier
that would cut off Japan from its
newly conquered lands in Burma, Malaya
and the Dutch East Indies.
Japan would be starved into surrender.
Equally importantly,
this plan would mean MacArthur could repay a debt.
Earlier in the war he had been kicked out
of the Philippines by the Japanese
and he had promised to return to liberate the country.
But the U.S. Navy had a different idea.
It would bypass the heavily defended
Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea
and the Philippines.
Instead it would seize a string
of much smaller islands scattered across
the central Pacific and close
to the Japanese homeland.
Rather than a barrier
the U.S. would have a series of strategic bases
from which to attack Japan's supply lines.
[plane revving]
They argued it would be swifter
and much more economic.
The American military command put off the decision.
Both the Army and Navy were told to go ahead.
In June 1943, MacArthur's plan was launched.
It was called Operation Cartwheel.
The first target was the major Japanese military base
at Rabaul on New Britain in the Solomon Islands.
It would be a two pronged attack.
[explosions]
The eastern prong fought its way up
through New Georgia and Bougainville.
[gunshots]
The western prong battled its way
through Papua New Guinea.
But the virtually impenetrable jungle,
and unhealthy climate, made progress slow.
It was nearly nine months before the pincers met
and the Japanese base at Rabaul was isolated.
Meanwhile as the U.S. army took control
of the Solomon Islands
the U.S. Navy mustered a mighty fleet.
It included the first four of the brand new
Essex class aircraft carriers.
They were bigger and faster than anything before.
The new carriers were equipped with
outstanding new planes like the Hellcat
and Corsair fighters,
Helldiver dive-bombers,
and Avenger torpedo bombers.
Together they both outperformed and outnumbered
their Japanese opponents.
The Navy's first targets were the Japanese garrisons
on the coral atolls of Tarawa and Makin
in the Gilbert Islands.
These were close to some of the most important
supply routes across the Pacific.
[cannons firing]
For a week the atolls were bombed
by carrier based aircraft.
[explosions]
Then on November 20th 1943
there was an amphibious landing.
Makin was captured with little difficulty.
But Tarawa was a different story.
Reconnaissance had failed to reveal that the water
was too shallow for the landing craft.
[explosion]
As the marines waded ashore,
they came under intense fire.
[gunshots]
The island was honeycombed
with fortified machine-gun nests.
[machine guns firing]
U.S. troops who made it to dry land
were pinned down on the beach.
[machine guns firing]
By the end of the day,
over 1,500 of the 5,000 U.S. marines landed
had been killed or severely injured.
Over the next two days frontal assaults
pushed the Japanese back inch-by-inch.
Very often, only flamethrowers could eliminate
the Japanese strong points.
It took three days before the last pocket
of Japanese resistance was wiped out.
Of the 4,200 Japanese troops on the island
only 17 were captured alive.
Tarawa was a terrible forerunner
of what was to come.
[people cheering]
The Japanese had shown
that there would be no question of surrender.
They would fight to the death.
It was a grim prospect.
In January 1944, America's naval offensive
in the Pacific moved on to the Marshall Islands.
Admiral Chester Nimitz,
the U.S. naval commander in the Central Pacific,
was anxious to avoid another bloodbath.
So aircraft from his carrier force
bombed Japanese airfields on the islands
for nearly two months.
[explosion]
Finally, on February the 1st 1944,
he sent in the assault forces.
The flat and open island of Roi was quickly overrun.
[gunshots]
[explosion]
[gunshots]
But the islands of Kwajalein, and Namur
were wooded and the Japanese resisted fanatically.
[cannon firing]
U.S. forces used flamethrowers and explosives.
[gunshots]
[explosions]
The Japanese responded by launching suicidal
'Banzai' charges.
But the U.S. forces now knew what to expect.
The Japanese were beaten back.
[gunshot]
Over 8000 Japanese soldiers died
for the loss of less than 400 U.S. lives.
[gunshots]
Atoll after atoll in the Marshall Islands
now fell to the U.S. advance.
Kwajalein was followed by Eniwetok.
The island of Truk was bypassed and cut off,
though a small Japanese garrison would remain
undefeated until the end of the war.
The way was now clear for the next push,
1000 miles west towards the Mariana Islands.
If captured the islands would put
the Japanese mainland within range
of U.S. heavy bombers.
They would also enable America to block
Japan's supply lines from Southeast Asia.
On June 11, 1944,
the U.S. started to soften up the three main islands
in the Marianas.
[explosions]
Four days later marines stormed the beaches
of the northerly island of Saipan.
This time the terrain was mountainous.
with many caves,
and the preliminary bombardment had not disrupted
the Japanese defences as much as had been hoped.
[firing]
Nevertheless, by the end of the day,
the American bridgehead was secure.
In Tokyo the news caused mounting alarm.
The Japanese High Command now sent a carrier fleet
to rescue the situation and save the Marianas.
But the task force was spotted by U.S. submarines.
The Americans sent their main carrier force
to intercept the Japanese.
On the morning of June 19th, 1944,
the Japanese launched air strikes
against the U.S. ships.
But U.S. radar saw them coming.
450 fighters were scrambled to intercept
the Japanese planes.
[firing]
It turned into the largest aircraft carrier battle
ever fought.
The U.S. Task Force had 15 aircraft carriers
and more than 900 aircraft.
Ranged against it the Japanese had nine carriers
and nearly five hundred aircraft.
But Japan had lost many of its experienced aircrews
during the Solomon and Marshall Islands campaigns.
Its novice pilots faced battle-hardened U.S. fliers.
The Japanese were outgunned and outfought.
It would go down in history
as 'The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot'.
Half an hour into the battle
a torpedo from a U.S. submarine hit the newest
and largest Japanese carrier, the Taiho,
while she was still launching aircraft.
[explosion]
The battle of the Philippine Sea
had claimed its first major victim.
At around the same time another U.S. submarine
torpedoed the carrier Shokaku.
[explosions]
She was completely destroyed.
Nevertheless the Japanese commander decided
to continue with the operation,
hoping to stop further U.S. landings in the Marianas.
For much of the following day,
the U.S. forces tried to pin down the exact location
of the remaining Japanese carriers.
Seven, zero, nine, six.
[narrator] It took them until the afternoon
to find them.
It was late in the day to launch an attack
and the aircraft would have to fly at the limit
of their range.
But the U.S. Task Force commander,
Admiral Marc Mitscher, decided to gamble and attack.
[explosion]
A third Japanese carrier, the Hiyo, was hit and sunk.
The Japanese had lost over 300 aircraft.
But as the U.S. planes now returned,
dangerously short of fuel,
they ran into a problem.
In the gathering darkness
they couldn't find their own carriers.
Many ran out of fuel and had to ditch in the sea.
Mitscher, in an act of extraordinary courage,
ordered his carriers to switch on their lights
to guide in the returning aircraft.
Fortunately for the Americans
there were no Japanese submarines to see them.
Nevertheless over 80 U.S. planes were lost,
either through having to ditch in the sea
or through crashing while they landed.
[crash]
But Japanese losses had been even greater.
Three carriers,
and most of the aircraft needed to equip
its remaining carrier fleet,
were gone.
From now on,
the United States Navy would dominate the Pacific,
striking when and where it wanted.
[firing]
The Japanese naval defeat in the Philippine Sea
meant the United States could now press on
with its assault on the Marianas.
[firing]
[explosion]
The Japanese forces on Saipan
held out for three weeks
before they were overcome on July 9th, 1944.
The final horror came
when thousands of Japanese civilians
were persuaded to jump to their deaths
from the cliffs rather than be captured
by the Americans.
[screaming]
The last Japanese troops then launched their now
inevitable suicide charge.
[firing]
Virtually the entire 32,000-strong garrison
was killed.
Over 3,000 Americans also died.
Two weeks later U.S. marines landed on the islands of Guam
and Tinian, also in the Marianas.
[people screaming]
[firing]
Once again they faced suicidal
Japanese counterattacks.
But they failed to stop the American advance.
The U.S. Navy had seized the Marianas.
Both the U.S. Army and Navy offensives
had now completed the first phase
of their separate strategies to isolate Japan.
The U.S. military planners now had to make a choice.
[gunshots]
Should they continue to back MacArthur's strategy
and move on to the capture of the Philippines?
Or should they go with the naval plan
and send a fleet across the Pacific to seize Taiwan
or the Ryukyu Islands?
The Naval option would isolate Japan
without the need for an almost certainly lengthy
and bloody operation to take the Philippines.
But at a meeting in Hawaii on July 26th, 1944,
MacArthur charmed President Roosevelt
into backing his plan to liberate the Philippines.
The Navy was instructed to support it
before returning to its island hopping strategy.
It was a decision that would cost a horrendous number
of both military and civilian lives.
The following month U.S. forces landed
on the Philippine island of Leyte.
[firing]
They took the Japanese by surprise.
They had expected the first U.S. landing
to be on the main island of Luzon.
Within hours MacArthur was striding ashore
with press photographers in attendance.
He later made a broadcast to the Philippine people.
I see that the old flagpole still stands.
Have your troops hoist the colours to its peak,
and let no enemy ever haul them down.
[narrator] But the Japanese soon recovered
and launched an ambitious plan to use the remains
of their naval power to counter-attack.
Operation Sho, meaning Victory,
was typically complex.
The main strength of the Japanese fleet
was divided into two groups to form a pincer.
One pincer would approach through the
San Bernardino Straits and attack the U.S. landing
from the north.
The second would come in through
the Surigao Straits and attack from the south.
Meanwhile, a decoy group of Japan's
last four carriers would approach the Philippines
from the north-east,
hoping to lure away the main U.S. carrier force
covering the landing.
The northern arm of the Japanese pincer
came under air attack almost immediately.
[explosions]
After nearly two days of bombardment,
the super-battleship Musashi was sunk.
The northern pincer then appeared to retreat.
It was now that the U.S. commanders
got into a muddle.
The man in charge of the main carrier force
covering the landings
was Admiral William 'Bull' Halsey.
He now got word of the Japanese carriers
approaching from the north east.
Halsey, believing the northern pincer
was no longer a threat, set off to intercept them.
He had fallen for the Japanese decoy.
The force protecting the U.S. landing
was now severely weakened.
But the commander of this force
now inadvertently compounded the problem.
Unaware that Halsey had taken off,
he sent his battleships to ambush the southern arm
of the Japanese pincer.
It looked like a spectacular success.
[firing]
But then disaster struck.
The northern arm of the Japanese pincer
had only pretended to retreat.
Under cover of darkness it turned round
and headed back.
It then attacked the hugely depleted force
protecting the U.S. landing.
Only a handful of small escort carriers and destroyers
faced the Japanese super-battleship Yamato
and three other battleships.
[firing]
It was now the turn of the Americans
to put up a desperate fight.
[firing]
The Japanese tactic had caught
the U.S. aircraft unprepared.
They were armed with high explosives
for land operations rather than armour piercing bombs
for ships.
[firing]
Then, just as it seemed the Japanese
must break through,
they suddenly turned tail.
Their commander had worried
he was sailing into a trap.
Meanwhile to the north,
Halsey's headlong rush to intercept
the Japanese decoy force, finally paid off.
[firing]
[screaming]
On October the 25th, 1944,
all four Japanese carriers were sunk.
[firing]
The battle of Leyte Gulf
had completely finished off Japan's
once proud navy.
There was now little hope of holding back
the American advance.
For Japan it was time for desperate measures.
The stage was set for a terrible climax
to Macarthur's plan.
[firing] [people screaming]
By the autumn of 1944
the Allies had isolated the Japanese forces
in the Philippines.
Their naval support had been destroyed.
Japan needed a new tactic if it was to hold back
the American advance.
[cheering]
The Japanese commander in the islands
called for volunteers to join special units.
They were called the Kamikazes or Divine Wind.
And drew on the Japanese military code of honour
that it was better to die than live as a coward.
They were suicide units.
On October 25th,1944,
the first Kamikaze unit took a final ceremonial drink
before taking off.
Its target was the U.S. fleet.
[firing]
The escort carrier St Lo was sunk
and two others badly damaged.
[firing]
Further Kamikaze attacks followed.
[firing]
Not all were restricted to the air.
The Japanese troops now began strapping mines
to their bodies and deliberately diving
under U.S. tanks.
[explosion]
The American advance through the Philippine island
of Leyte slowed.
[firing]
It would take two months before the island
was finally secured.
[firing]
Over 70,000 Japanese troops had lost their lives.
The Americans had lost nearly 16,000 men.
But MacArthur was undaunted.
He now moved on to the main Philippine island
of Luzon.
The defences were, as usual,
softened up by air attacks.
The U.S. troops went ashore virtually unopposed.
[firing]
But as they advanced, Japanese resistance stiffened.
[firing]
Tanks, artillery, mortars and flame throwers
were used to destroy a succession
of Japanese strongholds.
[firing]
Painfully the U.S. forces battled forward.
By January the 23rd, 1945,
they had reached the major airbase of Clark Field,
60 miles from the capital Manila.
A week later they were approaching the capital itself.
Manila was famous for its architectural beauty.
The Japanese regional commander
had taken a decision to preserve its buildings
by not defending it.
But the junior Japanese garrison commander
disobeyed orders and refused to withdraw.
His 20,000 troops pledged to defend Manila
to the death.
[firing]
There now began a ferocious, month long battle
to seize the Philippine capital.
[firing]
The U.S. troops fought their way into the city.
[explosion]
At first they too tried to preserve the major buildings.
But as they ran into snipers, machine-gun nests
and hidden artillery,
they were forced to reduce much of the city to rubble.
[explosions]
By the end of February
the Japanese defenders had been driven back
into the 16th-century citadel of Intramuros.
[firing]
It would take another week of fierce fighting
to flush them out.
[firing]
[explosion]
Finally, on April 13th, 1945,
U.S. forces mounted an amphibious attack
on Manila Bay's last fortification,
Fort Drum, the 'Concrete Battleship' in the harbour.
Its ventilation shafts were packed with kerosene,
white phosphorous and explosives.
[explosion]
None of the defenders survived.
The battle for Manila had been an horrific affair.
Thousands of Japanese and U.S. soldiers had died.
But the real horror was that some 100,000 civilians
also lost their lives.
Many massacred indiscriminately by the Japanese
during the final days of fighting.
Elsewhere in the Philippines
there were more than 50 U.S. landings
on other smaller islands.
[firing]
But it would take until the end of the war
before the last pockets of Japanese resistance
were finally flushed out.
[explosion]
[trumpet]
MacArthur's conquest of the Philippines
had proved as difficult and costly in lives
as his critics had feared.
It may also have been unnecessary.
By now U.S. submarines had virtually cut off Japan
from its supply lines and the Navy was closing in
on the homeland itself.
The Japanese merchant fleet
was particularly vulnerable.
It was rarely organised into convoys
and anyway there weren't enough escort vessels
to protect them.
[firing]
By the end of 1944 so many Japanese merchant ships
had been sunk,
the U.S. Navy was having problems
finding new targets.
U.S. submarines now moved in ever-closer
to the shores of the Japanese home islands.
Japan was being starved of fuel,
food and raw materials.
The U.S. Navy's submarines in the Pacific
had succeeded where German U-boats in the Atlantic
had failed in bringing an island nation close to defeat.
But now the U.S. forces faced the daunting prospect
of invading its fanatical enemy's homeland.
[firing]
By spring 1945 U.S. forces were closing in on Japan
from the south and east.
But to the west in China, Burma and India
a separate campaign had been unfolding.
[firing]
Japan had invaded China in 1937.
The United States had regarded the Chinese leader,
Chiang Kai-Shek, as a western ally, and sent aid.
Much of it went in through British controlled Burma
along the so-called Burma Road over the mountains
to southern China.
Then in 1942 Japan invaded Burma
and kicked out the British.
The Burma road was shut down.
Six months later Britain launched the first of a series
of attacks to retake Burma and re-open the road.
The first, in late 1942
advanced down the Burmese coast from India.
But the Japanese crushed it.
[firing]
The second, nine months later,
tried a different approach.
Instead of sending in a conventional force,
small groups of soldiers were infiltrated
deep behind Japanese lines.
They were known as Chindits
and were the brainchild of an unconventional officer,
called Orde Wingate.
Their task was to destroy railway lines
and disrupt Japanese communications.
[reporter] 'Chindits.
That's the name of the guardian statues
which stand up the steps of Burmese pagodas.
A name from legend that's becomes flesh and blood.
Living guardians of Burma's liberty.
[firing]
[narrator] But the Japanese soon began to hunt them down.
By mid-April in 1943
over one-third of the Chindit forces had been killed.
The remainder were forced back into India.
The struggle to re-take Burma
was becoming a serious problem.
So in late 1943 the Allies turned to U.S. General,
Joseph Stilwell.
We got run out of Burma,
and it's humiliating as hell.
I think we ought to find out what caused it,
go back and re-take the place.
[narrator] Stillwell had spent years helping to
overhaul the forces of neighbouring China.
[firing]
The Allies now decided to put them to the test.
[firing]
Stilwell's Chinese soldiers reinforced by
an elite U.S. group of jungle fighters
known as Merrill's Marauders
would be sent into Burma.
On October 1943, they crossed the border
and made their way down the east side of the country.
Meanwhile, the British India Army
launched a diversionary strike along the Burmese coast.
[firing]
Finally, Chindits moved into northern Burma,
deep behind enemy lines
to cut Japanese supply routes.
The Japanese fell for the diversionary tactic
and sent forces to counterattack along the coast.
Two divisions of troops from British India
came under fierce fire.
[firing]
But the Allied forces stood their ground.
They were re-supplied from the air.
They could now fight back and two weeks later
the Japanese withdrew.
[firing]
[explosion]
But it was only a temporary reprieve.
The Japanese launched a counter-offensive
of their own.
[explosion]
[firing]
In March 1944, they invaded India
in an attempt to disrupt Allied preparations
for further attacks.
For two weeks there was intense fighting.
The towns of Kohima and Imphal were besieged.
But there was stiff resistance
and the Japanese were finally forced to withdraw.
Over 65,000 of them were killed.
It was a major blow to their military strength
in the region.
Meanwhile in Burma, Stillwell's Chinese forces
had fought their way down the east side
of the country and by May 1944
had reached the important cross-roads town
of Myitkyina on the old Burma road.
For three months the Japanese held them off.
But in early August 1944, Myitkyina was over-run.
The way was now clear for Stillwell's men
to push further on down the east side of the country.
They were soon joined by a fresh force of
Anglo-Indian troops under British General
William Slim.
This began advancing into the centre of the country.
[explosion]
In early March 1945, Slim's forces took
the important communications centre of Meiktila.
Soon afterwards they seized Mandalay.
[explosion]
[firing]
With the monsoon season now approaching
Stillwell's forces dug in on the East.
But Slim's forces pushed on towards
the Burmese capital of Rangoon.
They were slowed down by the rain.
But by early May 1945
the Allied troops were 20 miles north of Rangoon.
Allied reinforcements were now sent in from the south
to support them.
Gurkhas parachuted into the Irrawaddy delta.
An Indian division came in by sea.
On May the 3rd 1945,
the Allied forces finally entered Rangoon.
But the city was empty.
The Japanese had pulled out
rather than risk being cut off.
[people cheering]
The monsoon was now in full flow.
But the campaign to clear the Japanese out of Burma
was effectively over.
The next stop in the war in South-East Asia
would be Malaya.
But for all the success,
allied losses in the war against the Japanese
had been terrible.
The Americans were desperate to find a way
to bring the war to an end
without having to invade the Japanese homeland.
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